Anton S. Tremsin

Far ultraviolet imaging from the IMAGE spacecraft. 2. Wideband FUV imaging

The Far Ultraviolet Wideband Imaging Camera (WIC) complements the magnetospheric images taken by the IMAGE satellite instruments with simultaneous global maps of the terrestrial aurora. Thus, a primary requirement of WIC is to image the total intensity of the aurora in wavelength regions most representative of the auroral source and least contaminated by dayglow, have sufficient field of view to cover the entire polar region from spacecraft apogee and have resolution that is sufficient to resolve auroras on a scale of 1 to 2 latitude degrees. The instrument is sensitive in the spectral region from 140–190 nm. The WIC is mounted on the rotating IMAGE spacecraft viewing radially outward and has a field of view of 17° in the direction parallel to the spacecraft spin axis. Its field of view is 30° in the direction perpendicular to the spin axis, although only a 17°×17° image of the Earth is recorded. The optics was an all-reflective, inverted Cassegrain Burch camera using concentric optics with a small convex primary and a large concave secondary mirror. The mirrors were coated by a special multi-layer coating, which has low reflectivity in the visible and near UV region. The detector consists of a MCP-intensified CCD. The MCP is curved to accommodate the focal surface of the concentric optics. The phosphor of the image intensifier is deposited on a concave fiberoptic window, which is then coupled to the CCD with a fiberoptic taper. The camera head operates in a fast frame transfer mode with the CCD being read approximately 30 full frames (512×256 pixel) per second with an exposure time of 0.033 s. The image motion due to the satellite spin is minimal during such a short exposure. Each image is electronically distortion corrected using the look up table scheme. An offset is added to each memory address that is proportional to the image shift due to satellite rotation, and the charge signal is digitally summed in memory. On orbit, approximately 300 frames will be added to produce one WIC image in memory. The advantage of the electronic motion compensation and distortion correction is that it is extremely flexible, permitting several kinds of corrections including motions parallel and perpendicular to the predicted axis of rotation. The instrument was calibrated by applying ultraviolet light through a vacuum monochromator and measuring the absolute responsivity of the instrument. To obtain the data for the distortion look up table, the camera was turned through various angles and the input angles corresponding to a pixel matrix were recorded. It was found that the spectral response peaked at 150 nm and fell off in either direction. The equivalent aperture of the camera, including mirror reflectivities and effective photocathode quantum efficiency, is about 0.04 cm2. Thus, a 100 Rayleigh aurora is expected to produce 23 equivalent counts per pixel per 10 s exposure at the peak of instrument response.

Site specific control of crystallographic grain orientation through electron beam additive manufacturing

Abstract Site specific control of the crystallographic orientation of grains within metal components has been unachievable before the advent of metals additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. To demonstrate the capability, the growth of highly misoriented micron scale grains outlining the letters D, O and E, through the thickness of a 25·4 mm tall bulk block comprised of primarily columnar [001] oriented grains made of the nickel base superalloy Inconel 718 was promoted. To accomplish this, electron beam scan strategies were developed based on principles of columnar to equiaxed transitions during solidification. Through changes in scan strategy, the electron beam heat source can rapidly change between point and line heat source modes to promote steady state and/or transient thermal gradients and liquid/solid interface velocity. With this approach, an equiaxed solidification in the regions bounding the letters D, O and E was achieved. The through thickness existence of the equiaxed grain structure outlining the letters within a highly columnar [001] oriented bulk was confirmed through characterizing the bulk specimen with energy selective neutron radiography and confirming with an electron backscatter detection. Ultimately, this demonstration promotes the ability to build metal components with site specific control on crystallographic orientation of grains using the electron beam melting process.

Development of new photon-counting detectors for single-molecule fluorescence microscopy

Two optical configurations are commonly used in single-molecule fluorescence microscopy: point-like excitation and detection to study freely diffusing molecules, and wide field illumination and detection to study surface immobilized or slowly diffusing molecules. Both approaches have common features, but also differ in significant aspects. In particular, they use different detectors, which share some requirements but also have major technical differences. Currently, two types of detectors best fulfil the needs of each approach: single-photon-counting avalanche diodes (SPADs) for point-like detection, and electron-multiplying charge-coupled devices (EMCCDs) for wide field detection. However, there is room for improvements in both cases. The first configuration suffers from low throughput owing to the analysis of data from a single location. The second, on the other hand, is limited to relatively low frame rates and loses the benefit of single-photon-counting approaches. During the past few years, new developments in point-like and wide field detectors have started addressing some of these issues. Here, we describe our recent progresses towards increasing the throughput of single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy in solution using parallel arrays of SPADs. We also discuss our development of large area photon-counting cameras achieving subnanosecond resolution for fluorescence lifetime imaging applications at the single-molecule level.

High-resolution cross delay line detectors for the GALEX mission

The GALEX instrument consists of a 50cm normal incidence mirror telescope in combination with a grism, and a dichroic beamsplitter system projecting images onto two detectors simultaneously. The objective of this instrument is to provide sensitive high resolution imaging of galaxies in two bandpasses, with the option of the modest resolution spectroscopy. We are currently developing the microchannel plate, delay line, sealed tube detectors for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission to be launched in 2001.

Spatial distribution of electron cloud footprints from microchannel plates: Measurements and modeling

The measurements of the electron cloud footprints produced by a stack of microchannel plates (MCPs) as a function of gain, MCP-to-readout distance and accelerating electric field are presented. To investigate the charge footprint variation, we introduce a ballistic model of the charge cloud propagation based on the energy and angular distribution at the MCP output. We also simulate the Coulomb repulsion in the electron cloud, which is likely to cause the experimentally observed increase in the cloud size with increasing MCP gain. Calculation results for both models are compared to the charge footprint sizes measured both in our experiments with high rear-field values (∼200–900 V/mm) and in the experiments of Edgar et al. [Rev. Sci. Instrum. 60, 3673 (1989)] (accelerating electric field ∼30–130 V/mm).

Cross strip imaging anodes for microchannel plate detectors

We have developed a novel microchannel plate readout scheme, the cross strip anode. The cross strip anode has a coarse (0.5 mm) multilayer metal and ceramic cross strip pattern that encodes event positions by direct sensing of the charge on each strip and subsequent determination of the charge cloud centroid for each event. Event position encoding is accomplished with chip level preamplifiers on the anode, subsequent analog-to-digital conversion of individual strip charge values, and a software centroid determination. We find that the spatial resolution ( 1 MHz and with low-power consumption (/spl sim/2 W) that is suitable for applications in space astrophysics.

High resolution cross strip anodes for photon counting detectors

A new photon counting, imaging readout for microchannel plate sensors, the cross strip (XS) anode, has been investigated. Charge centroiding of signals detected on two orthogonal layers of sense strip sets are used to derive photon locations. The XS anode spatial resolution (< 3 μm FWHM) exceeds the spatial resolution of most direct charge sensing anodes, and does so at low gain ( < 2 × 10 6 ). The image linearity and fidelity are high enough to resolve and map 7 μm MCP pores, offering new possibilities for astronomical and other applications.

The Microsphere Plate: a new type of electron multiplier

Abstract Microsphere Plates (MSPs), a new type of electron multiplier, consisting of sintered disks of glass beads, have recently become available from El-Mul Technologies Ltd. The principles of MSP operation are similar to those of microchannel plates (MCPs). We present a survey of the gain, resistance, dark noise, count rate capability, charge abstraction lifetime and image characteristics of a number of standard microsphere plates (of thickness 0.7 and 1.4 mm), operated both singly and as two-stage multipliers. Modal gains lay in the range 2.4–43 pC with pulse height relative FWHM values as low as 52%. MSP dark noise is relatively low (⋍0.5 counts cm 2 s −1 ) for well-chosen lower level discriminator settings. The image response is globally uniform, having local variations in image intensity on sub-mm scale, corresponding to the structure of MSP. Spatial resolution of an MSP detector may be better than 250 μm FWHM. No dependence of the gain on the angle of radiation incidence was observed for an angular range of 90°±25° (relative to the MSP surface), while the 2540 A UV relative detection efficiency varied by 10–15% over the same range. Lifetest measurements revealed that after removal of 8 × 10 −4 C cm −2 , the detector modal gain fell from 8 pC to half of its initial value. This fall in gain was compensated by raising the bias voltage.

Gallium Nitride Photocathode Development for Imaging Detectors

Recent progress in Gallium Nitride (GaN, AlGaN, InGaN) photocathodes show great promise for future detector applications in Astrophysical instruments. Efforts with opaque GaN photocathodes have yielded quantum efficiencies up to 70% at 120 nm and cutoffs at ~380 nm, with low out of band response, and high stability. Previous work with semitransparent GaN photocathodes produced relatively low quantum efficiencies in transmission mode (4%). We now have preliminary data showing that quantum efficiency improvements of a factor of 5 can be achieved. We have also performed two dimensional photon counting imaging with 25mm diameter semitransparent GaN photocathodes in close proximity to a microchannel plate stack and a cross delay line readout. The imaging performance achieves spatial resolution of ~50μm with low intrinsic background (below 1 event sec-1 cm-2) and reasonable image uniformity. GaN photocathodes with significant quantum efficiency have been fabricated on ceramic MCP substrates. In addition GaN has been deposited at low temperature onto quartz substrates, also achieving substantial quantum efficiency.

High Resolution Photon Counting With MCP-Timepix Quad Parallel Readout Operating at

The unique capability of microchannel plates (MCPs) to convert a single photon/ electron/ ion/ neutron into a charge of 104 -107 electrons localized within 4-12 μm from the event position is widely used in event counting imaging detectors. The high spatial and timing resolution of MCP detectors have been demonstrated with different readout techniques. A compromise between the spatial and temporal resolution, the global/local counting rate and active area must always be made for each detector application. In this paper we present a 28 × 28 mm2 MCP detector with 2 × 2 Timepix ASICs for readout, capable of ~ 10 μm spatial resolution at event rates up to ~ 3 MHz, and in excess of 200 MHz with ~ 55 μm pixels. This detector has a unique capability to detect multiple simultaneous events, up to several thousand with ~ 10 μm resolution and > 25000 for the 55 μm mode. The latter is enabled by the new fast readout electronics capable of readout speeds of ~ 1200 frames/sec. Despite its limitations (relatively small active area, readout dead time of 300 μs) the MCP-Timepix detector can be very attractive for applications where high spatial resolution needs to be preserved for nearly simultaneous events, e.g., time of flight measurements with pulsed sources. The low noise of the Timepix readout enables operation at gains as low as 104 -105, which should extend the lifetime of the MCP detectors operating at high counting rates.